Roy Hodgson yesterday bowed to the demands of Brendan Rodgers by leaving Daniel Sturridge out of the England squad.

Sturridge is in contention to play for Liverpool against West Brom tomorrow after a month-long thigh injury lay-off but he has been left out of Hodgson’s 21-strong party for England’s upcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino and Estonia.

Liverpool manager Rodgers insisted on Wednesday that the 25-year-old has still not fully recovered from the injury, which he sustained on international duty last month, and his name was absent from the squad list released by the Football Association at Wembley yesterday afternoon.

Hodgson told a press conference how disappointed he was that Sturridge was not in a position to join up with the squad but he insisted there have been no problems between club and country over his potential inclusion.

“That’s a great blow for us and it’s been a big blow for Liverpool, of course, and it will continue to be,” he said.

“It’s also a blow for the player because he was very anxious to be a part of these two games, but unfortunately injuries happen and we all accept it so there are no problems or conflict there at all.”

When asked if it would have been at all possible for Sturridge to train with the squad and feature against Estonia on October 12, Hodgson said it was best for the player to focus on improving his overall fitness.

He said: “No, he’s not played for Liverpool at all since picking up the injury with us. If he was to get fitter during the week which starts on Monday, then he’s still got a lot of work to do to bring himself up to speed to be able to play for Liverpool in their games.”

The England boss also denied suggestions that the Liverpool forward’s injury shows there are problems with the national side’s training regime, although he said it is something they will consider.

“We’re very disappointed about it but it’s obviously something we will consider going forward,” he added.

“But the other thing people do need to consider is that we have such a shortage of time and on this particular occasion we had two days to try and hone a very different way of playing.

“Strangely enough, Danny was a very important part of that because we wanted him and Wayne Rooney to play as split strikers and he had a lot of experience of playing that from his Liverpool time, so it was very unfortunate.

“But if I’m going to be put under pressure in future to give every player two days off every time we play, then we won’t train at all quite frankly, because we don’t have enough time pre-match and post-match.”

There were surprise call-ups for Swansea midfielder Jonjo Shelvey and Southampton defender Nathaniel Clyne, who could make his senior debut.